Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan was asked about Tom Petty, Chris Cornell, and Chester Bennington’s death in a new SPIN interview.
This year, we’ve lost Tom Petty, Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell, guys who were sharing MTV airspace with The Smashing Pumpkins in their heyday. Has any of this made you think more about your own mortality?
“Are you asking me the morbid question now?”
I am asking you the morbid question, and also, if you’ve thought about what an obituary might say about you when all’s said and done.
“I don’t give a shit. That’s like bar talk, you know what I mean? That’s bar talk that goes nowhere. I’ll give you the exact opposite answer of the question you’re asking. To me, life is about being in the present. That’s the greatest lesson I’ve learned, is just, be in the present. Be happy today. Enjoy your life today. Be thankful today. I wish during the best times of my life, personally and musically, I had been more grateful. I wish I had been kinder to the people around me. I wish I’d thanked the audiences more. I look back and I think, “How could you not appreciate all of the gifts and the magical things that have happened to you?” Because I wasn’t able to be in the present, I was always in the past or the future. I was always thinking, “I gotta get somewhere or I gotta get away from somewhere.” And I’ve reached a point now where I’m fine where I am, it’s totally cool. I’m proud of myself, I have no problem talking about my mistakes, it’s all good.”
He also discussed a possible Smashing Pumpkins reunion with LIPulse.
“Lots of innuendo and lots of questioning, but I’m in the dark as much as everyone else. Once the door was sort of reopened as it being a possibility, where it hadn’t of been a possibility for 15/16 years, then you click over to the next part, which is, “Is it even feasible? Is it practical? Is everybody interested?” There’s been a lot of energy spent on that, but I stay out of it. I turn it over to other people to kind of figure out, and I’m more focused on my personal relationships with the band members.
All I’ve said in terms of the business is if we do play, I want it to be really happy and fun…I doubt we could go back to how it used to be, which was full-time…I think in the 10 or 12 years we were at that level, the most time we ever took off was two weeks. We worked nonstop like crazy people. I obviously don’t think it would be the case now. If there’s some way we can be creative again, as far as recording and writing and re-conceptualizing what the band could be in the 21st century, I would be very, very interested in that.”
